Unable to search effectively on Shapeways

[PostModN66]

Can anyone help me on how to find what you want on Shapeways?  This isn't a joke - I could do with some tips.

I know what the item is, that it is N Scale, and who designed it.

If I search on the name of the item, I get ~1000 products, the names of which don't seem to relate to what I searched on
If I search on the name of the designer, I get ~ 42,000 products, none of which appear to be by the designer I specified
If I go by categories I go miniatures>model trains>N Scale and get 54 pages of products, but I can't then search within N Scale to narrow it down; if I search on anything it just looks in every category and I'm back to square one.

Any clues?

Cheers Jon   

[Oldman]

 One tip I will suggest is try searching under 1/160, 1/148 or 1/150 depending on if you model European, American, British or Japanese.Scale..
The other trick I use is having found 1 item by the designer is to open that item and then view their shop.

[NeMo]

Can anyone help me on how to find what you want on Shapeways?  This isn't a joke - I could do with some tips.

Agreed; like Rails of Sheffield, it seems to be a website design to get rid of shoppers who aren't serious and persistent!

But have you tried using Google? For example, paste in the following...

site:www.shapeways.com "n gauge" gwr

You'll get pages on Shapeways that all contain the phrase "n gauge" and the word gwr.

Of course this only works if Google has indexed a particular page. So it'll probably be a bit behind Shapeways own indexing.

Cheers, NeMo

[Cooper]

This page Jon?

http://www.shapeways.com/product/L4T8AR3UE/n-scale-n-gauge-1-148-hta-hopper-coal-loads?li=shop-results&optionId=12480638

[PostModN66]

This page Jon?

http://www.shapeways.com/product/L4T8AR3UE/n-scale-n-gauge-1-148-hta-hopper-coal-loads?li=shop-results&optionId=12480638

That's the one - good guess - but I really want to be able to do it for myself! 

Cheers  Jon 

[Cooper]

I understand the problem! Searching 'N Gauge' gave me 9k hits, adding 'N Gauge Coal Load' made it 10k. Clicking on designer and putting Only Me in turned him up top of the list immediately though. I don't find Shapeways easy to search at all, and I've spent more time than I care to admit trawling through N gauge listings to see what there is available. Good tip to try and use Google though... 

[Tank]

I tried recently and found the same problem, so I have up.  I'm sure I could search it easily a year ago.

[ohlavache]

I fully agree.
Shapeways' search engine doesn't work. I have the same difficulty for 009 stuff.
They should contact Exalead or a similar company to implement a proper algorithm.

[RussellH]

Hi Guys

Instead of adding words separately when trying to narrow the search join the words into one long string starting each new word with a capital and not a space.

Sandite MPV brings up loads of results (including a stealth plane) - SanditeMPV bring up one result.
Freightliner Headstock Set brings up 15000+ results - FreightlinerHeadstockSet bring up one result.

Happy hunting.

Regards
Russ

[N-Gauge-US]

You are not alone, Jon

Definitely the worst search engine of any site I use. I usually do what NeMo does and google what I want with the word shapeways included. I will have to try Russell's method too though.

One other thing worth mentioning is that if you know the approximate price of the item, if you search and get say 1000 results, you can use the price bar to narrow the field down, which usually knocks it down to just a couple of pages. Not ideal but an option.

[Hailstone]

as a result of ordering the Pug body from Shapeways I was asked to complete a customer satisfaction survey and used the opportunity to roast the website for its poor search function. I have received a reply 2 days ago and reproduce it here:

Shapeways



Adela Zemkova(Shapeways)

Apr 13, 10:00

Hello Alex,

I hope you're doing well.

First and foremost I wanted to thank you for filling out our survey. Your feedback is valuable to us and very much appreciated.

We are aware of the search engine situation and after receiving a lot of feedback we decided to push this issue to the top of our priority list.
We actually had a team meeting last week where we talked about improving search, and afterwards had a quick discussion with our CEO Pete who was concerned and urged for the improvement too.
Search is really hard to do really well, but there's absolutely some step we must take to get us out from the embarrassing ditch we're in now.

Right this second, our team is heads down doing really cool stuff for you, but the moment someone has time to breath in, we'll be sure to urge we fix this. 

Please let me know if there is anything we can do for you.

Have a great day.

Cheers,

Adela



Community Support & Relationship Ambassador
www.shapeways.com
http://shpws.me/LO4i

It would appear that I am not the only one who has made this complaint, and they seem concerned about it - I am hopeful  that things will improve....

Regards,

Alex

[N-Gauge-US]

Thanks for posting that, Alex. That is one of the more forthright email responses I've read to a complaint, which is encouraging. It seems they are taking it very seriously and intend to solve the problem. Very encouraging and I look forward to the day they crest the wall of the 'ditch' and get their site to where it ought to be